Walter Y. Evans-Wentz and the Comparative Study of Religion

Jens Schlieter A Common Core of Theosophy in Celtic Myth, Yoga, and Tibetan Buddhism: Walter Y. Evans-Wentz and the Comparative Study of Religion Imgination is the greatest of magicians. (John Woodroffe, Foreword, Tibetan Book of the Dead) Abstract: The contribution will discuss the impact of American Theosophist Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878–1965) on the emerging “science of religion.” Evans-Wentz first pursued Celtic studies, concluding in his The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Here, in line with Theosophical doctrines and Psychical Research, he claimed a “Fairyland” as “a supernormal state of consciousness into which men and women may enter temporarily in dreams, trances, and in various ecstatic states.”“Fairies” are nothing less than the “intelligent forces now recognized by psychical researchers.” Already in his early work, he drew freely on various other religious traditions in comparative perspective, aiming to corroborate evidence that the idea of rebirth has been advanced as a “common core” of the earliest strand of esoteric traditions. Later, he became attracted to Indian Yoga traditions, and, after periods of intensive practice and study in India, published a translation and commentary of the Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927). Being the first translation into a Western language, this work was a ground-breaking contribution, yet loaded with Theosophical ideas pro- jected into Tibetan Buddhism. An esoteric reading of the Book, Evans-Wentz argued, offers an almost scientific proof of reincarnation, but also a theory of karmic hallucinations that helped to explain cultural variants of after-death im- agery. However, even though Evans-Wentz did offer an array of comparative re- marks, he never advanced a methodology or system of religious thought, ritual, or a history of religion that overcomes the speculative assumptions of Theosophy. Therefore, the contribution argues that the innovative aspect of Evans-Wentz’ studies should be seen in his appreciation of informants belong- ing to the respective traditions, but also in being a catalyzer for the emerging field of the study of esoteric traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Open Access. © 2021 Jens Schlieter, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664270-007 162 Jens Schlieter 1 Introduction Western occultism and esotericism were, according to the guiding hypothesis of the conference, one of the fertile grounds that nourished an academic interest in comparative religion. As such, several scholars of the Occult in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were – directly or indirectly – involved in the emer- gence of “comparative religion,” or Religionswissenschaft, as an academic discipline. In this line, the approach of Walter Yeeling Evans-Wentz (1878–1965) will be in the focus of this contribution. Although his books have been popular for almost a century now, his impact on the comparative study of religion has never been made the topic of an extensive study. The same holds true for studies of the history of the Theosophical movement,1 or those dealing with the Western reception of Buddhism, and even in historiographies of the academic study of Buddhism, he is hardly ever discussed to a greater extent. As will be argued below, the reason for this negligence is the idiosyncratic, unconventional nature of Evans-Wentz’ work. For some Theosophists, his interest in Celtic literature, Tibetan Buddhism, and Neo-Hinduism was, I assume, probably too non- partisan, while Tibetologists were soon dissatisfied with his inaccurate translation and esoteric commentaries. For proponents of the academic discipline of comparative religion, however, though they made extensive use of his works, the absence of attempts to systematize the material, in combination with his highly speculative thoughts on the common heritage of Occidental and Oriental esotericism, was seemingly the most substantial impediment – even for scholars in the tradition of the phenomenology of religion. So far, contributions on Evans-Wentz focused almost exclusively on his “pioneer role” in the study of Tibetan Buddhism in general, and Buddhist Tantrism such as the teachings of the liberation while in the Bar-do of the so called The Tibetan Book of the Dead in particular. This pioneer role has best been summa- rized by John Strong. Referring to the mid-1960, he comments that Tibet, at that time, “was still an academic terra incognita,” and he continues: “as I sometimes joke – not completely accurately – to the students in my Tibetan religions class: ‘when I was in college, there were only four books in English in Tibetan Buddhism – and they were all written by a single wide-eyed theosophist, W.Y. Evans-Wentz.’”2 Even critics of his translations such as John M. Reynolds 1 For example, there is no mention of Evans-Wentz in Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein, eds., Handbook of the Theosophical Current (Leiden: Brill, 2013). For helpful comments especially in regard to Theosophy, I would like to thank Yves Mühlematter and Friedemann Rimbach-Sator. 2 John Strong, “Tensions in the Field of Religious and Buddhist Studies”,inTeaching Buddhism: New Insights on Understanding and Presenting the Traditions, ed. Todd Lewis and A Common Core of Theosophy 163 acknowledge his pioneering role for the study of Nyingmapa and Kagyudpa literature.3 In this respect, extant research, most importantly by Reynolds and Donald Lopez, has for the most part been dealing with the Tibetan Book of the Dead and the idiosyncrasies of Evans-Wentz’ Theosophical interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition, Evans-Wentz’ biography has been studied. Actually, his life may serve as a significant example of a transcultural and transcontinental spiritual quest that led him to several countries and various encounters with remarkable figures of Asian spirituality. Still missing, though, is a work that analyzes his scholarly approach and evaluates his general contribution to the study of religion. Equally absent is a full bibliography of his contributions. Evans-Wentz’ most significant books, still widely read today, were translations and studies of Tibetan Buddhism. Three of them emerged from a joint collabora- tion with an Indo-Tibetan scholar and translator, Lama Kazi-Dawa Samdup. His first book in this field was the ground-breaking translation The Tibetan Book of the Dead or the After-Death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, according to Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s English Rendering (1927, Oxford University Press; German edition 1935). Only one year later, in 1928, Evans-Wentz published Tibet’s Great Yogī Milarepa. In 1935, the study Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, or, Seven Books of Wisdom of the Great Path appeared, and finally, the last book on Tibetan Buddhism, The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954). The Tibetan tetralogy is framed by two other publications, completing the list of Evans-Wentz’ book-length treatises: The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911), and Cuchama and Sacred Mountains (1963; posthumous 1981). In addition, he published a number of articles in Theosophical and Neo-Buddhist journals, but these seemingly attracted much less attention. The relatively poor state of research on Evans-Wentz – one should note in this context that the Oxford University praised his work with an honorary degree (Doctor of Science) in Comparative Religion,4 and that Stanford University has still a “Walter Y. Evans- Wentz Professor” in the Department of Religious Studies5– may nevertheless not Gary DeAngelis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), ix–xi, ix–x; Conze, in “Thirty Years”: “The Tantra has always been the step-child of Buddhist studies. By 1940 W. Y. Evans- Wentz’s classical editions of Kazi Dawa-Samdu p’s translations were almost the only sources of intelligible information to which the English-speaking reader could turn” (23). 3 John Myrdhin Reynolds, Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness (Barrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill Press, 1989), 71. 4 Cf. Ken Winkler, Pilgrim of the Clear Light: The Biography of W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 2nd ed. (1982 Middletown: Booksmango, 2013), 111. 5 The “Walter Y. Evans-Wentz Professor of Oriental Philosophy, Religion, and Ethics” was cre- ated in 1983 with funds of Evans-Wentz. 164 Jens Schlieter be accidental. As a matter of fact, his contributions to the emerging field of comparative religion have been fueled by strong spiritualist and esoteric motives, combined with an ardent spiritual quest that more often than not interferes with the material treated in his studies. Nevertheless, as shall be shown, his contributions had a considerable impact. Evans-Wentz was one of the first Western scholars who fully acknowledged autochthonous scholarship. He collaborated with indigenous teachers and, which was at the time not a common practice, men- tioned them in his works. Moreover, his broad knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism and Yoga, but also Celtic, Christian, Gnostic, and Egyptian traditions enabled him to compare religious ideas and practices, accompanied by insights emerging from various encounters with protagonists of the respective traditions. Finally, his use of the generic concept of “books of dead” and the accompanying transcultural perspective of afterlife visions had a significant effect on the configura- tion of modern discourse of comparative mysticism, the analytic psychology of C.G. Jung,6 and the broadly shared assumption of a transcultural prevalence of near-death experiences. To summarize, I will try to describe Evans-Wentz’s work with a special focus on his way of “doing comparative religion.” Before moving on to this aspect, I shall start with a short biography of Walter Y. Evans-Wentz. For this purpose, I will rely on the autobiography by Ken Winkler, Pilgrim of the Clear Light (1982), and I will confine myself to as- pects relevant for understanding his view of religion. Evans-Wentz was born on February 2, 1878 in Trenton, New Jersey, but moved with his family to Florida and California.

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